The Laptop Thread: Configs, deals & questions

This is a discussion on The Laptop Thread: Configs, deals & questions within Gadgets, Computers & Software, part of the Shifting gears category; Check Lenovo Y510p model which suits your requirements pretty much. It was for $1100 recently in US (with dedicated 2GB ...

Check Lenovo Y510p model which suits your requirements pretty much. It was for $1100 recently in US (with dedicated 2GB graphics, 32GB or so SSD drive etc) which I felt was a value buy for that specification.

My brother is looking at buying 12 AIO [All In One] desktops for this office. We have zeroed in on Lenovo, but I have no idea about their service. How good is Lenovo's service compared to Dell? Any feedback is appreciated.

Which of the following is better for Best Battery Life?
1) Keep working on AC Power after the Battery got Fully Charged.
2) Turn OFF the AC Mains (but the Cable connected) after the Battery got Fully Charged, use the Battery juice till the latter drops to 20-25% level and again Switch ON the AC Mains.

Now looking for another one. We have three Lenovo Flex2 (14", i5, touch) in the family, my son, son-in-law and yours truly. Now my daughter-in-law's Acer Timeline (13", Core 2 solo) has packed up. We need a replacement - preferably 14", i5 and Non Touch. Our grandson (2 years) plays with the Laptop and the Screen so Touch can become dicey. Win 8.1 of course.

Looking for a budget but robust laptop, for general browsing and youtTube for home . Robust since I have a 2 year old son, who has already broken lenovo , first the hinges, then hard disk and now motherboard.
Was planning to go for Dell Vostro 2520 (15", Pentium dual core, 500 GB, Ubuntu). Any first hand reviews on this one http://www.flipkart.com/dell-vostro-...MDS2DGF7FRTK93

Ok so everytime I zero in on a particular Lenovo laptop, I'm not able to find that particular model in the physical market.

I'm looking for a high performance laptop at 50k (max). I'm not keen on a particular brand but it should be easily available in the outside retail market.

If the laptop is modern, sleek and flexes etc. then I'm ready to sacrifice a little bit on performance front otherwise a dud looking laptop but high on performance works equally well.

What are my options? I don't want to zero down anything based on flipkart because a lot of obsolete models continue to sell on it and when I go out, say at Croma Retail or Vijay Sales, they are nowhere to be found.

I use a Samsung RV509 bought in 2011 and it works fine but a couple of times off late I've noticed the laptop shutting down on its own due to over heating (happens when I've connected the charger, doing my work while copying movies, etc from an external disk in the background).

Looking to buy a new cooling pad. Which model would be best suited for this laptop? I've attached a pic of the underside of my laptop (pic taken off Google) so please suggest accordingly

If you are into DIY, I’d suggest you to open up the laptop and clean the heatsink using a used/discarded toothbrush and a hand blower. Not the electric type (even this would do but unnecessary here) but the hand operated one. Generates sufficient throw of air to kick the dust and dirt clogged in the heatsink vents.

You can also take the laptop to a service center and they will do it for you for a price. Barely takes half an hour but makes a world of difference to the CPU/GPU temperatures once you do this. This is usually a routine maintenance task and has to be done at least once a year to prevent overheating.

You’d be surprised to see a new ecosystem that has formed around the vents with dust, hair and what not. Like these:

I have never used a cooling pad so I cannot recommend one. Take care not to block the vents beneath the laptop when you use it atop a bed/pillow or such.

I was just looking small portable laptops - so called netbooks, which have lost flavour with the arrival of the tablets
Looking at just basic computing tasks, internet browsing and maybe watching a movie sometime with the machine.
Budget around 25k; 10 or 11 inch models
The options include
1)Lenovo Ideapad Flex 10 (59-408507) - Intel Pentium N3520/2GB RAM
2)ASUS X102BA - DF039H - AMD Temash A4-1200/2GB RAM
3)Stretching my budget a little would mean ASUS Tranformer book T100TA-DK005H - Intel Atom Z3740/2GB RAM

Any other suggestions are welcome

Quote:

Originally Posted by mayankk

I picked the the flex 10 just last month.
Very capable machine for run of he mill stuff.
outlook, excel, word, firefox, bitlord all run concurrently without any issues at all.
Touchscreen is a whiz to use.
Howver, anything heavier sort of puts it into shame mode. I converted a video from mkv to mp4 last night, and it behaved about as slow as lappys did with vista.

Can you please update your review of the Lenovo Flex 10, as I might just end up buying this one. I'm just a little concerned with the service and reliability issues with Lenovo also.

I wonder about the following:
1.If one buys a good netbook, can it behave as a proper laptop if one hooks up an external HDD and accesses data that way?
2. If yes, then which netbook should we look at?

For a hassle free buying and ownership experience, I would recommend Dell. Specifically their Vostro series from the small office/home office range and buy with 3 year on site accident cover warranty.

The starting model should meet all of your criterion, the add on warranty though will push up the price.

Deal directly with Dell via email or phone. The prices posted by their online partner compuindia (IIRC) seem to be on the higher side.

The home range which is the Inspiron series is definitely feature rich but starts at 30K i.e. 5K more than the Vostro.

Amongst the others, have had a hassle free experience with Toshiba's Satellite Pro series but that one was bought online from Toshiba.com and shipped here via courier. This was about 4 years ago, never needed the warranty except for a battery change which was sourced locally.

I wonder about the following:
1.If one buys a good netbook, can it behave as a proper laptop if one hooks up an external HDD and accesses data that way?
2. If yes, then which netbook should we look at?